


A Broken Feather, Straightened

by not_poignant



Series: The Fae Tales Verse - canon extras [2]
Category: Fae Tales - not_poignant, Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Original Work
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Body Dysmorphia, Dark Agenda, Fingering, First Time, Flashbacks, Fluff, M/M, Masturbation, Nightmares, Nonhuman Characters, Oneshot, POV Nonhuman, PTSD, Shapeshifting, Unseelie Court, flagrant abuse of fairytale and folklore, reassurance, slow seduction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-20
Updated: 2013-09-20
Packaged: 2017-12-27 02:25:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/973180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/not_poignant/pseuds/not_poignant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Augus was taken and tortured by the Nightmare King, he became determined to overthrow the Raven Prince's Unseelie Reign to get the power needed to exact his revenge, specifically by finding his way into the Raven Prince's bed and and learning his confidences. What he didn't expect was to find a friend, or to be learned in turn. This now has a sequel, called (<a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2601050/chapters/5793404">These Troubled Times</a>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Broken Feather, Straightened

**Author's Note:**

> This is a oneshot, and is connected to the original [Shadows and Light verse](http://archiveofourown.org/series/42417) and definitely the [Shadows and Light: Fae Tales](http://archiveofourown.org/series/53073) verse. However, I think it can be read on its own, out of context, although it will be more richly understood within that context. :)
> 
> Thank you to all and any who decide to comment or kudos or even bookmark this fic. You are lovely, and it's really nice for me personally to be able to put up a fic with an explicit rating but no major archive warnings! Lol. However, please do read the additional tags.
> 
> This now has a sequel, called ([These Troubled Times](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2601050/chapters/5793404))

It was the most peaceful Unseelie Court of any reign. That it came at the hands of the Raven Prince, a seventh son of a seventh son, was initially a surprise to all. For the Raven Prince was quiet and wild, destined for a life on the wing. It did not seem possible that he could tame himself enough to rule an unruly Kingdom.

But he could, and he did.

Thousands of years passed and now everyone understood that the Raven Prince was a complicated but successful King. Augus, in particular, was growing to understand just how complicated. He could be cold, aloof, indomitable. Behind closed doors he could be fractious and fretful – large, black eyes darting in all directions as though looking for a place he could launch from in order to fly away. In fact, Augus _had_ seen him do that, twice now. The Raven Prince could be an exquisite, fragile man, or a magnificent, powerful raven.

The Raven Prince ruled with a Courtier’s wit. He was a master of the rapier, unbeaten for centuries. He developed new styles of swordsmanship. He privileged knowledge and learning, expanded the libraries, allowed any to enter in order to read or learn letters. He loved the thrill of the hunt, and bit his bottom lip when he saw that one of his daggers had landed true in his quarry. He admired and adored beautiful things and beautiful people, and installed in his Court those who were astute, acerbic, stunning.

To that end, Augus had been a member of his Court for some time.

The Raven Prince’s throne room was a dark space, framed by giant trees with thick trunks and broad, seeking roots. His throne was perched haphazardly between a fork in the roots of the largest tree, the throne a construction of filaments of metal, colourful charms made of crystal and bone hanging from outposts of platinum and silver. The large, night-bound space was lit above with stars in the endless starry-twilight of the Unseelie Court. The tree trunk walls were lit with small, glowing jewel beetles whose steady blue and white lights glowed constantly. Some clustered, feathered antennae touching as they communicated in their beetle-speak. And there fae also clustered, charmingly lit, talking in rare and common tongues.

There was an odour of musk, common amongst any place where Unseelie fae frequently gathered. And layered above were the perfumes they wore made from rare flowers, tart, citrusy fruits that could only be found in the otherworlds, the crushing of pine needles or a bruised eucalyptus leaves.

The Raven Prince could only handle the scent overload of his throne room for so long. However, he enjoyed being amongst similar company, so Augus had observed him stay amongst the others simply for light conversation, longer than was healthy.

Augus, over many years now, had a familiarity with the Raven Prince that many others envied. The other fae believed it had happened by accident, but nothing – if Augus could help it – ever happened in his life accidentally. He had made deliberate steps for a long time, he would make them for many years more.

The Raven Prince leaned back in his throne, one leg crossed over the other, knee-high black leather boots polished up to a purple-blue sheen. He wore a sleeveless, black, button-up shirt that was collared up closely at his throat, and belted black pants, silver-hilted rapier attached to his right hip. The long, floor-sweeping cloak of raven feathers he often wore was folded over the unruly metal of the armrest of his throne. His hair, straight and brushing the tips of his shoulders was peppered throughout with raven feathers of uneven lengths. These too, like his boots, had a blue-purple sheen and gleamed healthily in the light.

He leaned over to Augus, who was sitting by his side on a thick tree root, hands on the bark of it. Augus watched the fae who had gathered to be in the presence of a King, who wished for recognition or notice and the gifts that might come with his favour.

‘By what name do you call that fashion?’ the Raven Prince said. His voice often surprised. It was aristocratic and precise, but in there lurked the voice of a bird that cawed and crowed. In his human-form it came through in sarcasm, in droll observations, dry mannerisms.

Augus looked over to one of the horned fae who was knocking back a shot of clear, sweet liqueur and wore an abrasive red that didn’t suit his complexion at all. Augus shrugged a shoulder.

‘He likes it well enough. I imagine he must, no one else would.’

The Raven Prince’s lips touched with the barest hint of a smirk.

‘Why is he here again?’

‘He’s considered a prince of his kind, Raven Prince,’ Augus said, tucking his damp, dripping hair behind his ear as he watched. ‘No prince of fashion, though.’

‘No, indeed.’

The Raven Prince’s eyes lingered on Augus, taking in his fine skin, the bone structure of his face, the clothing that Augus chose and styled for himself. Augus returned his gaze steadily. He knew that this was, in part, why he was in the Court at all. At first it disturbed him, now he was used to it. The Raven Prince didn’t think like many other fae, and he admired and hoarded beautiful things. He could not help himself.

It had taken Augus a long time to realise that the Raven Prince’s gaze was not in any way a sexual invitation. But Augus, in turn, was convinced that he could learn his King carnally. It would be something that required time, a delicate touch.

He had both.

The Raven Prince raised fingertips to his nose briefly, looking queasy. All at once the patina of scent had struck at him. Augus stood, adjusted his rapier. The Raven Prince had been teaching him for years now, and he was considered a skilled fighter. No match – as yet – for the Raven Prince himself, but the Raven Prince was a generous, helpful teacher, and they were both confident that a day would come when Augus would be one of the best at the craft in the Unseelie Kingdom.

‘It is time you took your leave, Majesty.’

‘Is it?’ the Raven Prince said, looking at him with a knowing, playful smirk.

Augus repressed a brief shudder. Someone else had talked to him like that once, and ever since, particularly when tired – as he was now – the tone alone was enough to cause a thick nausea to rise up in the back of his throat. He swallowed it down and shrugged.

‘If it pleases you.’

Augus had been quietly pressing the Raven Prince of late, learning where he could push, where he could not. Augus made his living as a professional dominant, someone who took fae who needed his services through the difficult times in their lives, and brought them to the other side, whole, as unbroken as possible. His very core energy was that of dominance, and he could not help but push or press at others, to see where they might give or yield to him.

He had been very careful of this around the Raven Prince, but lately he had noticed a sort of curiosity in the Raven Prince’s eyes whenever the subject of Augus’ profession came up. After all this time, the Raven Prince, too wild and flighty to let himself be touched by those creatures of the ground, was coming around. Augus could sense it, and so...

The Raven Prince stood and picked up his cloak with a flourish, shouldering it and tying the long, leather straps of it around his chest. He waved a lazy hand to those fae still remaining, then walked quickly away. Augus followed, a small burst of warmth lighting up on the surface of his mind.

Augus was getting his way more often with the Raven Prince, sliding in as an influence, placing his will just so.

They walked down a long corridor, its walls made of trees with black bark, lit by more jewel beetles. Overhead stars winked down at them, the constellations peculiar to the Unseelie Court and its fae. It was said that if one fell asleep while watching them, they would share their stories with one in dreams. Augus had tried this, desperate to escape his nightmares, and found only the terrible memories waiting for him.

Still, it was a nice story. He suspected that half the glamour of the fae was simply in the constant weaving of stories. Clever lies for those who wished to learn them.

The Raven Prince walked briskly over an arched, wooden bridge that crossed a healthy, flowing river. Silver and green fish leapt to see the King of the Court pass, and Augus watched them. They seemed as dumb as any small fish, but they only leapt like that for the King, only flashed their pale sparkling bellies for him.

They were outdoors now, still within the Unseelie Court, which melded outdoor and indoor seamlessly. It was a landscape that bent to the will of thousands of Unseelie minds, unified by the wishes of their King. They walked through a wintry wood, away from the mess of scent, into a crisp, clean space covered in newly fallen snow. There, the Raven Prince paused and looked up at the stars, before placing a long-fingered hand against the bark.

‘My page, Thactris, he came to see you recently, did he not?’

Augus stilled, turned back to the Raven Prince. Here, in the forest, under the colder light, the hollows of his face were highlighted. It turned his black eyes to shadows and the space under his cheekbones gaunt. No one that Augus had ever met wore their human-form as clumsily as the Raven Prince. He was so unused to his form that he avoided common names and insisted that all – even his brothers and parents – call him the Raven Prince. He had insisted on that name long before he knew he was going to be a King in the Unseelie Court.

But then, Augus also knew that he had been a privileged, eccentric little fledgling, too.

‘He did,’ Augus said quietly.

‘Will you still not talk about it, even though he has told me all?’

Augus doubted that Thactris had revealed all of _that_ encounter, even under the precise, silver-tongued questioning of his master the King.

‘I have told you many times now, I care for the confidentiality of those who seek my services.’

‘Even though your King is asking?’

‘No, you’re not,’ Augus said. ‘You’re curious, but not truly. Let it lie, Your Majesty.’

When the Raven Prince did let it go, did not speak of it again, Augus felt a moment of triumph. The Raven Prince was listening to him more often. Once, Augus had thought it would simply be something to win over a King. But now he reasoned, it felt good to be listened to by someone whose counsel he valued.

Besides, like any wary, wild animal given the chance to explore the lay of the land at his own pace, the Raven Prince was growing curious. All Augus had to do was gently turn the Raven Prince off the subject of domination, and the Raven Prince would return to it in his own time, more curious than ever.

*

Months passed as they always had. Augus left to hunt, to digest food in his lake, to see his brother, Ash; who would not ever come close to the Unseelie Court no matter how Augus encouraged him. He entertained his King, he learned the rapier, he learned combat skills from Fluri the mouse-maiden and became adept at disarming through the clever use of pressure points. He learned a range of languages, letters, expanded his knowledge, even helmed a Wild Hunt while the Raven Prince had flown alongside him in raven form, cawing happily and tipping his body into the night sky, feathers ruffling in a cold, violent wind.

Augus had woken up that morning in a baleful mood. He slept only five or six times a year, far less than he truly required, but far more than he could tolerate. His nightmares were earthquakes in the still waters of his mind. They shook his thoughts apart until he couldn’t find them.

There were times he could not remember his name for hours. And when he stumbled across it – _Augus Each Uisge –_ he cradled it in his own mind and his eyes burned.

It took him twelve hours to emerge from his room in the Inner Court of the Unseelie Kingdom. He went straight to the lake that he did not live in – that no one lived in – but that he’d claimed as his own anyway. He knelt by its side and pressed his hand into damp soil, restructured his thoughts as he always had to, after dreams like that.

_I am Augus Each Uisge, I am a waterhorse, I am myself again, I am in the safety of the Unseelie Court, I am Augus Each Uisge..._

He was surprised when, an hour later, the Raven Prince joined him. The Raven Prince did not sit down on the damp soil – that was beneath him, birds did not sully their feathers in mud, they were not _waterhorses –_ but he conjured a chair with magery, and sat beside him.

‘Your sleep troubles me,’ the Raven Prince said. ‘Your refusal to see any healers about it only has me convinced that you are not, actually, a sadist, but a masochist of the strangest order.’

‘You’ve caught me, Your Majesty,’ Augus said, smiling.

‘Have I?’ the Raven Prince said, and Augus squeezed his eyes shut for only a second. Those brief questions, so _close_ to those nightmares, and he could feel a terrible darkness inside himself. It was pollution in the silt of his thoughts, down where he couldn’t claw it out.

‘Am I not in your Court?’ Augus said, and placed a damp, wet hand on the bridge of the Raven Prince’s foot, over his leather boot.

The Raven Prince stiffened at the touch, and Augus didn’t look up at him. He withdrew his hand a few seconds later.

For Augus had started with casual, brief touches, expecting rejection, and getting none. Slowly, he attuned the Raven Prince to physicality, to his presence. He let the Raven Prince know that to be present in his human-form by Augus’ side was not a limiting experience. He could fly away whenever he wished.

‘There is still a great deal I do not know about you.’

‘And I, you,’ Augus said. ‘Is that such a problem?’

‘Do not think me a fool,’ the Raven Prince said. ‘Your mind is like what mine might be, were my mind broken.’

It was Augus’ turn to stiffen.

‘I have the mind of one who has mastered several forms of the rapier,’ the Raven Prince said, standing. ‘One day, you will reveal your plans to me, and then we shall see what happens. Until then, join me. I wish to leave this Court today and spend some time in the summer sun. Perhaps later I might show you a new technique I’m working on.’

‘You shouldn’t train someone who you suspect of having plans,’ Augus said, standing, and the Raven Prince made an expression that could have been a smile, were it not caged in shadow and the fact that birds did not often smile at anyone with anything but their eyes.

‘Perhaps I have plans of my own.’

*

It was a dance between them. The Raven Prince was not stupid. He was ancient, wise, and sometimes he watched Augus with a calculating gaze. Augus couldn’t help wonder what he saw. For why would the Raven Prince be so generous with him, if he suspected the truth? Perhaps he was simply that beguiled by beauty, it would not surprise him. It wouldn’t surprise anyone.

There was the time when the Raven Prince was bowed over paperwork and Augus had entered quietly and leaned over him, looking at the scratchy lines that were hardly legible.

‘You’re working too hard, Majesty,’ Augus said.

He placed a hand on the Raven Prince’s bony shoulder, so lightly that his fingers didn’t touch him completely.

The Raven Prince inhaled sharply, but Augus was already withdrawing his hand, and then he left the room.

Only a few hours later, the Raven Prince shifted into his raven form and gone out flying, and didn’t come back for three days.

Augus hadn’t encroached on his physical space for a month after that. Things were the same as they had always been between them, except that the Raven Prince looked at him longer, and seemed more easily drawn into conversations amongst other fae, when they were discussing Augus’ skills. Augus often made himself absent for those conversations, but gossip trickled down when you were Inner Court in the Unseelie Court. And he had several loyal servants now, creatures who were happy to share what they heard for free, let alone for gold or gems.

After a month, he picked up the Raven Prince’s cloak before the Raven Prince could, and held it out for him to step into. The feathers were soft and glossy with healthy oils against his fingers, it smelled of bird and sky. A lot of people assumed that the Raven Prince needed the cloak to shapeshift, but he didn’t.

The Raven Prince stared at him, shocked, then stared at the cloak itself.

‘Pretend I am your loyal servant,’ Augus said, lightly mocking.

It had broken the tension, and the Raven Prince had breathed out a sound of laughter and stepped into the cloak, allowing Augus to tie the worn, butter-soft leather straps together at the front. When he’d finished pulling the bow tight, he looked into the eyes of his King, and smirked.

‘What game is this?’ the Raven Prince said.

‘Whatever game you wish it to be,’ Augus said.

‘Playing at being my servant? When you want me to be yours?’

‘Your Majesty, I have always been your servant, didn’t you know?’

But Augus left the other question unanswered. It hung between them, an open question that made them more physically aware of the other.

And so it went, Augus testing the bounds of what he could do. Sometimes it was with touch. Small, light touches here and there. Those that appeared accidental and those that were very deliberate. There were the times he glanced the backs of his fingers across the Raven Prince’s arms. And then there were was the time he extended a hand to the Raven Prince to shake it after sparring, and he held on for a little longer than the Raven Prince was comfortable, making a steady, daring eye contact.

This happened after Augus had been beaten in the arena and was lightly sweat-sheened. The Raven Prince had finally disengaged his hand from Augus’ and stared at it for several seconds.

He looked up at Augus and raised eyebrows.

‘I had thought I was quite skilled at many things, but it turns out I have much to learn in this.’

‘In what, Your Majesty?’ Augus said innocently.

‘Nothing,’ the Raven Prince said.

When he walked from the room, Augus looked at the small patch of neat, tiny feathers that grew from the back of his neck, half-hidden with hair, and wondered how the Raven Prince might react if he ever got a chance to stroke them.

*

Most fae liked leisurely pursuits. They were built to live in synchrony with their environment, whether that was lounging by lakes, encouraging the land to grow simply by being there, enjoying conversation. So it was normal for Augus to take a book and read to the Raven Prince, and for that to be considered an afternoon well-spent. When the Raven Prince wasn’t running his Kingdom, he indulged pursuits of the mind, and occasionally, pursuits of the body, provided they came in the form of fencing or horse-riding.

It was a sunny afternoon in the Unseelie Court, though stars were still visible in the sky. A lazy afternoon sun penetrated through leaves that turned to gold and auburn on the trees. Augus closed a book that the Raven Prince often got him to read; ancient tales of when firebirds were still common in the lands. The Raven Prince had arranged himself on a richly woven blanket, not a single part of his body touching the forest floor. In his mess of hair and feathers he wore his silver crown, and around his neck he wore a frail, silver necklace with a charm of bone and crystal at the base.

For the Raven Prince was a mage, also, and valued the workings of magic. He’d tried teaching Augus, but Augus did not have a natural aptitude for deliberate magic. Augus was disappointed, at first, but still admired its usage when others worked with it.

‘Is it always painful?’ the Raven Prince said, and Augus’ eyebrows narrowed.

He was used to this; the odd ways that the Raven Prince would start talking. For when he was not in his throne room or in the Court proper, he spoke the way he wished to speak, and not the way he knew he should for his Courtiers.

‘I beg your pardon, Prince?’

The Raven Prince half-smiled at the affectation. A half-smile on the Raven Prince was practically a grin for anyone else, and Augus smiled in return.

‘Your reputation. Pain and whips and toys. It sounds revolting. But is it always like that?’

Augus forced his breathing to evenness. Here it was. The curiosity being returned to him tenfold, displayed before him. Here came the wild creature, eyeing the new thing carefully, wanting to know if something nourishing lurked. When he looked up, the Raven Prince was looking at the blanket itself, tracing embroidery with the delicate tips of his black clawed nails.

‘My Prince, I only do what is needed of me. It doesn’t have to be painful, not a single moment of pain.’

He let the seconds stretch behind them, and then placed a question down precisely between them, as though he were offering it on the blanket itself.

‘Why do you ask?’

The Raven Prince looked up quickly at that, as though he’d forgotten himself. And, indeed, he may have done. For it was not like him to talk so candidly about things like this, even when he and Augus were in private. When it was just the two of them, others assumed that the Raven Prince came alive, that he chatted about anything he wanted. But the fact was that the Raven Prince was contained everywhere he went, and that one of the reasons he enjoyed Augus’ company so much, was that Augus didn’t expect him to be anything more than he was.

But the expression on the Raven Prince’s face was that of an animal who knew he’d been spotted. He was still for a few moments, and then made a very deliberate, upright shift. Augus remained still, kept his body language easy.

The dance between them continued.

‘I will be back in a few days,’ the Raven Prince said.

‘Enjoy your time in the skies,’ Augus said.

The Raven Prince stood up and walked away without a backwards glance.

A moment later a large, shaggy, black raven whose feathers refracted rainbows, launched with an alarmed caw up into the sun-filled, starry sky. Augus walked over to the Raven Prince’s blanket and laid upon it, a faint smile playing upon his face.

*

The Raven Prince withdrew from Augus for a few weeks after that, but Augus wasn’t worried. He expected as much, waited for the Raven Prince to realise that he wasn’t surprised, or upset, or pressuring him to be anything different.

It was during a particularly long meeting when it happened. Augus sat at a Council and handed the Raven Prince the documents he needed to help bolster his compelling arguments. Then the Raven Prince reached underneath the long table with its longer tablecloth, and placed a careful palm on the outside of Augus’ thigh.

Augus’ eyes widened, he glanced over, but the Raven Prince hadn’t made eye contact, and the touch itself disappeared seconds later.

But Augus knew a signal when he was given one, and he – holding sheafs of paper in his arms, scrolls on top of those – followed the Raven Prince after the meeting. They walked down one of the inner corridors towards the Raven Prince’s room, a sanctum that Augus himself had never entered, let alone seen. He’d only seen an open door leading to an antechamber once, and a black, metal door beyond it. Rumours abounded about what it must look like – that it was an indoor eyrie, that it was made for a man who slept in the form of a raven, that it didn’t have a bed or any furniture – but Augus let his mind become a still lake when he thought of that room. He didn’t need to speculate. He would either learn what it looked like, or he wouldn’t. Water could wait. It eroded.

Augus was a water creature, he knew how to wear down someone’s defences over decades if he had to. And the Raven Prince was of the air; flighty and filled with turmoil, insightful and smart like the crack of a whip, capable of verbal lashes that stripped the confidence from the bones of others when he was sorting out his Kingdom.

The Raven Prince paused at his door, and Augus watched him carefully. His own room wasn’t even along this corridor. The Raven Prince’s Inner Court lived in separate areas of the Kingdom. Augus didn’t even live near the other members, and they were often absent.

‘You helped me a great deal, today,’ the Raven Prince said. ‘Though I did not ask you to compel that ambassador from the Outlands.’

‘You did not, I did that of my own free will, because he was _frustrating.’_

The Raven Prince raised eyebrows in agreement.

‘That is a dangerous skill you have.’

‘I’m aware. I’ve never misused it in your Court.’

That wasn’t _entirely_ true, but Augus had never misused it around the Raven Prince. And he’d never used it on the Raven Prince himself, knowing he wasn’t immune. Bird people could be particularly susceptible to the hypnotic voices of others.

‘Ah,’ Augus said. ‘Are you still under the notion that I have _plans_ for you? Do you think it will involve compulsion? How many years has it been? You can still best me with the rapier. You are an adept mage and always expanding your skills. Are you-’

‘Stop,’ the Raven Prince said. ‘Cease.’

Augus closed his mouth immediately, waited.

‘I would like to give you something, but you must give me something first.’

Augus’ brow furrowed. He adjusted his grip around the papers and scrolls he was carrying. They were awkward to start with, they were getting heavy.

‘Tell me of one of your dreams,’ the Raven Prince said.

Augus stared at him.

‘If you tell me one of your dreams, I will give you something of equal value in exchange. You know what it is. You are dismissed.’

‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ Augus said, blinking at him. He turned automatically and walked back the way he had come.

*

He considered lying. But there was no point. The Raven Prince would know.

He considered telling a half-truth. Weaving some tale that revealed something of the truth without revealing anything at all, but there was no point to that either, the Raven Prince would know.

That was frustrating, because Augus was not interested in telling anyone about the content of those dreams. He hadn’t told his brother. He wouldn’t tell anyone. He spent several days back in his own lake, away from the Unseelie Court, turning his life over in his mind, looking at it, wondering what he should do next.

For in his slow seduction of the Raven Prince, he had also been seducing himself with the idea of what it might be like to take that wild creature, to gently fill him up, to see what sounds he made. To see if there were any other parts of his body where he grew his feathers, aside from his head and the back of his neck.

And the Raven Prince had, in a way, become his friend. They were cautious and curious around each other, and it was a sort of freedom to not be expected to share, to reveal. For even Ash looked at him sometimes with wide, sympathetic eyes, asking questions always, even if he never spoke them aloud. To spend time with someone who didn’t ask questions, even when no words were spoken, it was something he hadn’t known he needed.

But the Raven Prince had broken the rules. He had asked for something that Augus wasn’t willing to give.

But then Augus had been offering a similar pressure in return, for a long time. The Raven Prince was not a fool.

This was Augus’ strength though. He lay back on his bed and stared up at his ceiling, smiled. He need do nothing but wait. For the Raven Prince wanted Augus, more than Augus needed the Raven Prince in his bed. Because unlike the Raven Prince, he had no shortage of lovers and clients, and because he was not touch-starved like the Raven Prince was. So he would return to the Court and not reveal his nightmares, and in time, the Raven Prince would concede.

The question was how much time.

Augus had years, if he needed them.

*

It was six months when the subject came up again. In that time, Augus had led two Wild Hunts on his own, and the Raven Prince was extending him greater increments of trust. Augus now held so much of his confidence, that delegates from fae nations sometimes requested _his_ audience instead of the Raven Prince’s. It was getting to the point where his reputation was no longer only or even primarily attached to his skills as a dominant, but as a diplomat.

Augus and the Raven Prince’s friendship had resumed far more easily than the Raven Prince seemed to expect it to. For several days he’d maintained that he wouldn’t give up anything at all without knowing more about the nightmares, but Augus had simply affected innocence and kept up his minimalistic touches, waiting for rejection; none came.

The one thing that people didn’t expect Augus to have – due to his relative youth compared with the ages of the others in the Inner Court – was patience. But Augus had plenty. Once he’d settled himself down to the possibility of waiting decades for the Raven Prince to come to him, to come and serve and offer up his body as an altar of flesh, it became easy to go on in the Court as he always had.

His focus on Court matters dragged him away from his lake far more often, he’d missed his brother several times, and had taken to leaving long notes for him. But Ash never came to the Unseelie Court, and Augus never went to visit Ash in the human world. That was a wound inside Augus’ heart, and he could only soothe it by speaking often and kindly of his brother to the Raven Prince whenever he thought the subject might be welcome.

Fortunately, the Raven Prince cared a great deal for family, and Augus was able to speak of his brother enough that the wound in his heart was not severe.

At the end of six months, Augus entered his room in the Inner Court; a cosy, space furnished primarily in white, grey and olive. And in his room, waiting for him, was the Raven Prince.

He stood awkwardly, out of place. His back was stiff, his eyes wary when Augus entered.

‘Your Majesty? Do you need something?’ Augus said, tugging off leather gloves and laying them neatly over the back of a chair.

‘How does this work? Do I just-?’

And the Raven Prince startled Augus by shedding his cloak of feathers and laying it on Augus’ perfectly made bed, and then raising his own hands to the button at his collar. Augus felt a flush of gentle amusement and pleasure. He stepped forwards, watched as the Raven Prince flinched back from him.

‘Your Majesty, no, it is not all of a rush. You don’t need to do this. Here, look. Remain standing. And clothed.’

‘I was given to understand that clothing was a hindrance,’ the Raven Prince said, brow furrowing with a confusion so rare that Augus immediately reached up and touched the back of his hand to the Raven Prince’s forehead. They maintained a long, steady eye contact, and then the Raven Prince’s forehead smoothed. He grimaced at himself.

It confirmed something that Augus had long suspected; the Raven Prince had lain with no one before.

The thought was a nourishing rush to his core energy of dominance, it filtered through the waters inside of him until he felt himself hunger. There was a part of him that wanted to inflict himself on the Raven Prince. To drag him down by that feathery, scruffy hair and force him to yield to pain, dropping small hints of pleasure until the Raven Prince had no choice but to reluctantly follow, begging for more. That part of him wanted bloodstains and lacerations and the taste of copper-red in his mouth. But this was a different contract of dominance.

Not a hint of pain, and Augus planned to stick to that promise.

‘Close your eyes, Your Majesty,’ Augus said, allowing his voice to soften.

But the Raven Prince would not close his eyes, directing his black irises to Augus’ and raising a single eyebrow in challenge. Augus laughed.

‘Keep them open, all the better to see me coming, I suppose? I do recall what happened the first time you told me to close my eyes on the mat. And I, suspecting some meditative lesson, ended up flat on my back.’

‘That was the lesson,’ the Raven Prince said, though he smirked and then a small breath of laughter escaped him.

‘And one you’ve taken to heart. Then here, watch me.’

Augus stepped up to the Raven Prince and raised his hands up and forwards slowly, watching his nervous gaze dart between both of his palms. Augus settled his fingers on the sides of the Raven Prince’s face, and then pushed fingertips into his hair carefully, feeling sturdy quills of raven feathers alongside his absurdly soft hair. He left his fingertips there and his palms curved around his cheeks.

He let seconds pass, time for the Raven Prince to get used to the touch. There was no obvious reaction on his behalf, but his breathing had quickened, and Augus could feel a tension singing through his body which he responded to by relaxing his own.

_Gently._

Augus caught the Raven Prince’s eyes with his own as he slid his right hand down over the back of his ear, and then further still, along the ridge of the back of his skull, and onto layers of tiny, overlapping feathers. They were glossy and slick underneath his fingertips. He stroked them once, and the Raven Prince gasped.

‘I’ve wanted to do that for some time,’ Augus said, and the Raven Prince’s gaze moved over several points in the room before settling on Augus’ face once more.

‘Then do it again. Sate yourself.’

‘As you wish, Your Majesty,’ Augus said with a smile, able to stand the command he was given by tucking it alongside the knowledge that soon, _soon,_ he would make the King of the entire Unseelie Kingdom beg for him, his hands, his mouth, his touch.

Augus dragged his fingertips back up through the feathers, ruffling them, and his other hand caught the shiver, the clenching of his jaw. He smoothed the feathers back down again, settling them back in place, and then stroked over and over, finding the contour of them, feeling the way they grew so easily out of his skin.

‘Do you have these anywhere else?’ Augus said. ‘Anywhere I’m not likely to have seen?’

The Raven Prince flushed. It was a delicate shade that crossed his cheekbones and faded quickly. But a moment later, a tiny hint of pink crept up over the Raven Prince’s collar.

‘You do, don’t you? Shall I guess? Shall I _look?’_

‘Don’t overstep your bounds,’ the Raven Prince said, his voice turning harsher, closer to its raven caw. Augus leaned in as though to kiss him, keeping him anchored with the hand at the back of his neck.

‘Then please, tell me what these boundaries are,’ Augus breathed against his mouth. ‘Tell me, and then look me in the eyes and tell me that you don’t wish me to overstep them.’

The Raven Prince’s lips parted.

Augus trailed the hand on his face down, until he could press the pads of his fingers against his lower lip. It was chapped, dry, and behind it, Augus could feel hot, unsteady breathing.

‘You are my King,’ Augus said, feeling the heavier exhale that came against his skin at those words. ‘And so you will remain, no matter what you give to me in this room.’

At that, Augus dropped his hands and retreated.

‘Consider it,’ Augus said, looking over his shoulder at the Raven Prince as he shrugged off his long, tailored black coat and hung it up for himself. He preferred to maintain his own room, to have the servants stay away from his private thoughts, his private spaces.

The Raven Prince turned to look at him, and then raised his own hand to his lips, touching the space that Augus had touched.

‘No pain,’ the Raven Prince said again, confirming.

‘I lied,’ Augus said, smiling, watching the way the Raven Prince’s whole body stiffened. ‘There may be pain, but not in the way you are thinking. It is a sweet ache in your belly, a tightening that begs for relief. It is akin to the unbearable tension in that moment when you draw your arm back, hoping your knife lands true. Lust, my Prince, unchecked lust can _ache._ Beyond that? No, not a single moment of pain.’

‘I will...I will consider it.’

The Raven Prince picked up his coat and left, a contemplative look on his face.

Augus waited until he was clear of the corridor and sat down on his own bed. He could feel the phantom imprint of feathers under his fingers, of dry lips, of a King who was no more than a birdman unfamiliar with what Augus knew so, _so_ well.

Augus exhaled. He had to laugh when he realised that he was plagued with the same sweet ache he’d just told the Raven Prince about, and dragged his own hand down to his cock with an inevitability that made his head swim.

*

This time it wasn’t a matter of waiting months or weeks, but a single evening. In the early hours of the morning, too early for most of the diurnal fae to have roused, the Raven Prince opened Augus’ door and slipped into his room, closing it carefully behind him. He paused there, uncertain, when he realised that Augus was nude, laying on his bed and flicking through the pages of a book. It was – Augus realised – the first time the Raven Prince had seen him unclothed.

Years spent seeking out the sun every spring and summer had given Augus a healthy, olive glow. His cheeks and shoulders were dotted with freckles. Augus knew that he made a picture whether clothed or unclothed. He watched the Raven Prince, who in turn, was staring at Augus’ body.

‘Come join me,’ Augus said, closing his book. ‘Your Majesty, remove your shirt. Let me see you.’

The Raven Prince’s eyes glanced up to Augus’, a flash of annoyance there at being spoken to with such familiarity. Augus returned the gaze steadily.

‘If you want to do this, you have to let me lead this dance.’

The Raven Prince raised hands to his shirt and unbuttoned the first, black pearl button. He moved down to the next and unbuttoned that too, before lowering his hands to the base of his shirt and untucking it from his pants. Even now, he was dressed so formally. Augus had to wonder how he slept. Informally or formally clothed? In raven or human-form?

It was with a carefulness that the Raven Prince shed his shirt. It was the act of someone who had never gotten used to his human-form, who still – after all this time – preferred the form of raven over the skin he was expected to wear in his own Court. And as he peeled back the shirt and let it fall to the ground, Augus lifted up, seeing a small trail of tiny, black features starting below his navel and leading down below the hem of his pants, where others might have hair or fur.

The Raven Prince had the leanness of someone who preferred to remember that it was easy to simply spread wings and soar. He was lithe, fragile like his throne. The Raven Prince looked down at himself, following Augus’ gaze, and then spread his arms slowly.

‘This is all I am,’ he said, his voice softer than Augus could recall hearing for some time.

‘King and so much more,’ Augus said, sitting up and extending his hand out palm up, an invitation.

The Raven Prince came to him, placing his hand in Augus’, allowing himself to be pulled onto the bed. He knelt beside Augus and then placed his other hand on Augus’ shoulder. It was a light touch, one that carried no ulterior motives.

Augus sat up properly, folded his legs. He kept the Raven Prince’s hand in his own, squeezing it. With the other he reached out and curved fingers around the Raven Prince’s side, feeling the thrum of heat beneath his skin. Birds had fast metabolisms, they exuded heat. Augus, by comparison, was used to preserving his own heat in the core of himself, he had a slow metabolism, his skin was lukewarm. To the Raven Prince it must have felt cool.

Augus stroked his palm with his thumb, a firm, easy pressure, slowly down and then back up again. He did the same with the hand on the Raven Prince’s ribs. He watched his own hand moving instead of the Raven Prince, taking away the burden of eye contact. He could feel muscles occasionally twitch under his caresses, and waited until they subsided, until the Raven Prince began not so much to relax, but at least accept the touch.

And then he leaned forward and pressed his open mouth to his chest, above his nipple, licking with the same, firm pressure. He squeezed the Raven Prince’s hand again, and then mouthed his way up to his collarbone, wondering if his Prince had the same hollow bones as he had in his raven form. He licked his way into a divot of flesh, and the Raven Prince reached up and touched the back of Augus’ head.

Augus didn’t stop, but something in him became cautious. It always did, when someone other than Ash touched his hair. But the Raven Prince didn’t do more than simply leave his hand there.

‘I’ve always wanted to do this,’ the Raven Prince said.

‘Be tasted? Touch someone else? Lay upon my bed like a work of art? I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific than that, my Prince.’

The Raven Prince shifted his hand slightly, picked up a strand of waterweed in his fingers. Augus shivered.

‘I always wanted to know what it felt like, to have damp hair. It’s rougher than I expected.’

‘It’s a _mane,’_ Augus said, looking up finally and smiling at the flush that had returned to the Raven Prince’s face. ‘It’s coarse.’

‘And _plants._ I haven’t met many other fae who grow plants directly out of their head. Dryads, of course. And I do believe I met a party of-’

‘Concentrate, Your Majesty,’ Augus said, leaning up and kissing the Raven Prince on his jaw, following him as he leaned away. Augus licked at his skin, and then made his way down the Raven Prince’s neck, sucking lightly where it met his shoulder. The Raven Prince shivered, quietened.

‘We can talk about my biology at any point. You may strip me naked and ask me whatever you wish, but now we must turn this flighty mind of yours to other matters, what do you say?’

‘You are chastising me,’ the Raven Prince said, and Augus scraped his teeth across his skin. The Raven Prince gasped again.

‘Yes, I am,’ Augus said, testing the waters, seeing once more where he could push.

‘I’ve been a King for a very long time, I’m unused to being chastised.’

‘Then cast your mind back to when you were a gadabout, eccentric fledgling. I’m sure your parents chastised you often.’

The Raven Prince laughed properly then, a sound that rarely left his chest. It was harsh, raucous.

‘Oh, _yes._ They did. I turned up at the dinner table as a bird. They were _most_ vexed. I remember-’

A choked off sound as Augus lowered his hand to the hem of the Raven Prince’s pants, and then worked at the belt buckle, slipping the belt through and laying it by their side. He moved to the button and zip of the fly and worked it down. He pressed his palm flat against the downy feathers there, and the Raven Prince froze.

‘Are you concentrating?’ Augus said.

The Raven Prince made a low, soft sound of acknowledgement.

Augus trailed his hand up and away from the feathers, mapping out skin, touching the small, black birthmarks that dotted the right-hand side of his ribs. He stroked long lines down his bare arms, and then back up again to his neck, feeling the frantic bird-pulse. He pushed one hand back up into his hair again, and massaged his head carefully, while the Raven Prince watched him; shocked. With his other hand, he stroked the bridge of the Raven Prince’s nose, the arch of his eyebrows, the shell of his ear.

The Raven Prince didn’t say anything else, and like Augus, he wasn’t typically vocal. His reactions came mainly in the shifts of his breathing, the gooseflesh that sometimes followed Augus’ actions. Augus learned that the Raven Prince’s neck was sensitive, that the inside of his wrists and elbows made him shiver when touched. He learned that the Raven Prince did not particularly care for having his nipples touched, but five fingers running up along the outside of his ribs made him exhale harder and inhale sharply with appreciation. It was doing this that made the Raven Prince lean back suddenly, as though he wanted to lie down. He stopped himself, and Augus shook his head.

‘That’s good, my Prince. Lie back,’ Augus said, and the Raven Prince went down reluctantly, watching him with wary eyes.

Augus leaned over him and kissed his way down the centre of his chest, licking at the flavour of his skin, wishing he could sink teeth in deep and know what his blood tasted like. Some things would have to wait. When the Raven Prince offered himself again, and he would, then he could start to push – slowly – over time.

When his mouth reached the first of the small feathers, overlapping like fish scales at the base of the Raven Prince’s belly, he blew air on them and the Raven Prince’s hips jerked in response. A hand came up and tentatively touched his hair again, and Augus tilted his head to encourage it. He reached up and hooked fingers around the Raven Prince’s pants and then tugged repeatedly, until the Raven Prince lifted his hips, assisting. Augus drew them down, pressing kisses to his inner thigh as he went, then his calf, and ankle, and then, in the parody of a servant kissing the boot of his master, Augus kissed the bare bridge of his foot and looked up, making eye contact and smiling when the Raven Prince only watched with wide eyes.

Augus lay the pants aside and moved back up, kissing and licking as he went, until finally he was resting once more at those tiny feathers. He traced spirals in them, ruffling them, settling them down. And when the Raven Prince got gooseflesh around his pelvis, when he started to get hard in anticipation, the feathers stiffened on their quills and raised up from his skin.

Augus passed over them again with his fingers and the Raven Prince grunted.

‘Cease,’ the Raven Prince said, and Augus paused.

‘You like it,’ Augus said.

‘You’re just indulging yourself with the novelty of it.’

‘No,’ Augus laughed. ‘You think I haven’t seen stranger? It is that you _like_ it. Watch.’

Augus bent his head down and kissed at the stiffened feathers, feeling the beginnings of an erection brush against the side of his face. The Raven Prince made a sound then, half-frustration, half-want. Augus chuckled against the feathers, and even that drew a long, unsteady inhale.

Augus turned his head and licked long stripes against the Raven Prince’s inner thigh, until his leg opened. Augus continued, stroking the inside of his legs, the sensitive, soft crease where thigh met pelvis, until his legs opened wider. It was an invitation, but Augus didn’t move between them, only kept up with his ministrations until the Raven Prince was fully hard, his cock long and finely formed.

Augus looked at him with hooded eyes, and instead of touching his length, ducked lower to caress the softness of his balls instead, watching as the Raven Prince’s eyes finally flutter closed.

‘All this time, and you’ve never been with someone before in this manner. And you want to now? I’m flattered.’

‘I don’t know if I want to, I’m just curious,’ the Raven Prince said, but he arched his hips up into Augus’ touch, and Augus followed his cues with generous, attentive touch. ‘Don’t think this that this is the beginning of some florid, romantic cliché. Perhaps I only wish to understand myself better.’

Augus smirked, moved up the bed, opening his drawer without breaking eye contact. He found his glass vial of lubricant, and rolled it in his palm, moving back down the bed again so that he could return to what he was doing.

‘You said no pain,’ the Raven Prince said and Augus almost made a sound of exasperation.

‘I don’t understand your obsession with reminding me of this, Your Majesty. You know I follow direction very well. Do you not trust me? Wait, don’t answer that. Do you not trust me _in this?’_

‘It is only that I am not unlearned. Pain is supposed to be a part of it.’

Augus laughed as he rubbed soothing circles into the Raven Prince’s inner thighs.

‘Among rutting soldiers and immature boys, certainly. Amongst those who have no idea what they’re doing, and even some who do; yes. The ones most likely to brag of their conquests in that Court are the ones who do not know that this doesn’t have to hurt, even the first time.’

‘So...you’ve done it before without pain?’

‘Yes, my Prince. Yes, I have. As I said, I only do what is needed of me, no more. You are not the first wild creature who has come across my path and needed a gentle touch.’

‘I’m one of the greatest Kings of my time and the times before me, I do not need a ‘gentle touch.’’ The Raven Prince made a face at his own words. ‘I don’t even believe myself.’

‘You said it, Your Majesty, not I.’

The trick with the Raven Prince was simply to give him time to get used to everything. Every new place he was touched elicited a new cautiousness, but if allowed, that caution fell away and the Raven Prince participated in his own pleasure. Once committed, he not only allowed it, but sought after it.

Augus had expected him to be more flighty than this, but there was a mix of warmth and determination in his King’s eyes, and so he was able to move along faster than expected.

When Augus stroked slick fingers along the Raven Prince’s entrance, the tension returned, but Augus simply lifted eyebrows at him and continued his movements. Continued them until the Raven Prince relaxed, until the hole he was pressing against unclenched, and then Augus still didn’t breach him. The Raven Prince was weeping precome from the tip of his still untouched cock, his face twisted into a grimace, his eyes squeezed shut.

‘Oh,’ he said, on a breath, ‘there is an ache.’

Augus didn’t press into him, but it would be _soon._

‘Yes,’ Augus said, his voice deepening.

‘I want...’

‘I know,’ Augus said.

‘I want you to. Why haven’t you?’

‘Ask me, Your Majesty.’

The Raven Prince’s eyes flew open, and Augus risked a tiny amount of a pressure there, at his entrance, before going back to stroking. For here, he had caught the Raven Prince. He’d made the Raven Prince aware that even if he issued the command, he had still been ordered to do so. That here he was, on his back before a subject, about to be claimed and taken, and Augus had known that they would get to this point all along.

‘You’re better at this than you are at fencing,’ the Raven Prince conceded, breathless, and Augus wanted to laugh, because the Raven Prince was easier than some of his other clients had been. But then, Augus hadn’t had the luxury of years of seduction on his side with them. He’d had to work harder in the moment. ‘I want, I want to feel less empty. Help me, Augus.’

Augus waited a few more seconds and then pressed the very tip of his finger inside, holding it still as his other fingers continued stroking. The Raven Prince clenched around him, automatically, that cautiousness returning alongside several heavy, shuddered breaths. But it wouldn’t have hurt. At most, it felt uncomfortable.

‘Ah,’ the Raven Prince said. ‘More.’

‘Not yet,’ Augus said, smoothing his other hand over his taut belly, deliberately avoiding his cock that was begging to be touched.

‘More, I... _order_ you to.’

‘Not yet,’ Augus soothed, and the Raven Prince made a sound of irritation at being denied. ‘In this, I lead.’

He waited another minute, feeling the Raven Prince unclench around him fully, before pressing in deeper. He moved his finger back and forth, slicking him further, then pushed in until his finger had sunk halfway. The Raven Prince clenched around him again, and Augus thumbed the jut of his hip, stroked his outer thigh, coaxing tension away.

‘It doesn’t hurt,’ the Raven Prince said, wonderingly. ‘It’s only...different.’

 _Oh, you are charming._ Augus had grown hard in the confines of his own pants, and shifted. He hadn’t expected the Raven Prince to talk so much, though perhaps he shouldn’t have been surprised.

Time was something he had in abundance as he got the Raven Prince used to one finger, then two, then three. Quiet responses had turned into low, gentle noises that fell from the Raven Prince’s throat, unbidden. At the press of the third finger, the Raven Prince had made a strangled noise that was almost a sob, and then seemed embarrassed at himself, biting his lip to hold in more noises until he forgot himself and opened his mouth to pant.

Augus was pumping into him slowly, watching the Raven Prince, the _King,_ undulating his hips, his legs spread wide, every arch up a request for something more. The Raven Prince was open now, relaxed, there had been no pain at all. Augus could be rougher, even, and there would be no pain but for a stiffness, a residual soreness the next day. But Augus didn’t even want that, so he wasn’t rougher.

There would be other times.

_If they could see you like this, Your Majesty, they’d hardly believe it of you._

But Augus did. Augus had suspected, all along, that it could be like this.

‘If you don’t actually... _do_ whatever comes next, then I’ll be _most_ unhappy,’ the Raven Prince said, unable to drop his formal language even now.

Augus curled his fingers up and brushed against his prostate, and the Raven Prince cried out, loudly.

‘The words you’re looking for, Your Majesty, my Prince, is that you want me to _fuck_ you. Try them.’

‘They’re coarse words,’ the Raven Prince managed to sound petulant, even though sweat had broken out across his chest, it had dampened the feathers at his pelvis and groin.

‘Yes, for a coarse act.’

‘How, _how_ is this coarse?’ the Raven Prince said, sounds catching in the back of his throat as Augus curled his fingers up once more. ‘This is, _oh,_ I didn’t know it could be _beautiful.’_

Augus’ eyes widened at the words, a breath stuttered out of his throat. There was so much sincerity there, so much truth, that Augus felt stripped bare by it. For several seconds he hardly remembered where he was, or what he was doing.

‘Fuck me,’ the Raven Prince said, pressing his hips up into Augus’ fingers hungrily.

Augus took a deep breath, reached out with his other hand and took up some more lubricant, slicking himself generously. He squeezed at the base of himself, closed his eyes, tilted his head back.

_I didn’t know it could be beautiful._

Augus didn’t realise he could still give that to others. He’d forgotten. He moved his hand up himself and enjoyed the dual sensation of having his fingers inside the Raven Prince, having his fingers around himself.

‘Augus, my Courtier, will you look like that, when you’re inside me?’

Augus looked down at him through lidded eyes and smiled.

‘Yes, Your Majesty, I expect so.’

He withdrew his fingers with care, and then pressed his hips forwards, arched over the Raven Prince and making sure he was comfortable first. He looked into the black eyes of his King and angled himself, pushed in, watching the Raven Prince’s eyes widen and then squeeze shut at the sensation of it. Augus found nothing but a mild tightness, a welcoming heat against him. The Raven Prince sighed, his legs tensed and relaxed, the cautiousness nothing more than a token effort now. And the Raven Prince was so comfortable that even before Augus was fully sheathed, he had arched his hips up and asked for more.

Augus paused before he was all the way in, watching the Raven Prince carefully.

‘Any pain?’

‘None, _none._ The ache you mentioned, yes, but no, Augus.’

‘Do you want more?’

‘There’s _more?’_ the Raven Prince raised up on his elbows and looked down between them, shocked. ‘Oh. I...don’t know.’

‘You don’t have to know. Lay back, my Prince. Lay back.’

The Raven Prince lay down again and Augus pressed a gentle kiss to his chest, withdrawing and pressing back carefully, not forcing himself all the way in. He would go slow, he would see what happened. If the Raven Prince wanted more, he would take more naturally.

He set up a persistent, compelling rhythm with his hips. He showed his King what it meant to be born of the water, what it meant to have currents and ripples singing through one’s body every second of every day. He braced himself on one arm, and with the other stroked the Raven Prince’s hair, the feathers in his hair, finding out that the skin at the base of the quills was more sensitive and scratching lightly. Between them, the Raven Prince’s cock twitched against Augus’ pelvis, seeking touch that it had not received.

Augus found his way deeper, until his hips met the Raven Prince’s, and he moved his hand forwards and wrapped his fingers around the Raven Prince’s cock just as his lower torso sandwiched it between them. He squeezed once, and the Raven Prince cried out, a long, drawn out note that belonged to someone who was more bird than man.

Come scalded Augus’ fingers, the skin between them, and Augus shuddered at the sense of it, at the feeling that he had done well, the core energy inside of himself swelling with nourishment at being fed so completely.

He didn’t need to come, with a result like this. He waited, stilled inside the King, feeling the pulses and spasms of the Raven Prince moving around him, watching his face hungrily, the sweet pained lines around his eyes and in the grimace of his mouth. The Raven Prince was overwhelmed by the intensity of it, and his orgasm – unsurprisingly – went on for some time.

Augus waited until he slumped, lax, back onto the bed.

He withdrew carefully, still hard, took several deep breaths. The Raven Prince was still trembling on the bed, his eyes were open, he stared up at the ceiling in surprise. Eventually his gaze lowered to Augus’ and he shook his head slowly in wonder. Then he noticed that Augus was still hard.

‘Oh, you...but, I thought, I mean...you _can.’_

‘It wouldn’t be seemly. Not this time. If you wish it again, then perhaps,’ Augus said. ‘But tonight was not about me rutting into you, Your Majesty. I promised no pain, and there, how do you feel?’

‘As though I have spent...hours under the afternoon sun, and my feathers are hot as metal.’

Augus smiled. The Raven Prince was still looking at Augus’ cock, and he licked his lips. His own hand came down to the ejaculate on his torso and touched it, smeared it across the white-paleness of his skin. Augus shivered with want. The Raven Prince’s eyes snapped up to his.

‘Touch yourself,’ the Raven Prince said. ‘That _is_ an order.’

Augus stared at him. A bristling annoyance flickered through his entire body. His core of dominance did not want to be _ordered_ around, not _now._ He opened his mouth to disagree, but the Raven Prince’s eyes turned determined.

‘Touch yourself,’ he said again. ‘You are in the presence of your King, you _will_ do this. I know how difficult this is for you, but-’

‘It is not difficult to touch myself,’ Augus said, wrapping his hands around himself and telling himself over and over again that he’d chosen this for himself, that he’d fucked himself into the Raven Prince, that everything was going to _plan._ But as soon as the Raven Prince had exerted his status, Augus was painfully aware that the power balance had shifted just enough that he felt jarred.

‘It is difficult for you to take orders,’ the Raven Prince said, sitting up, watching Augus move his hand slowly around his cock. ‘Ever has it been. It is amazing you submit to me as well as you do. And – I think – only because I do not give you direct orders as others might. But in this, I want to see you spill, Augus. You are so beautiful.’

‘I _know,’_ Augus said, tilting his head back as warmth pooled in his groin. He was close, and warmth quickly turned to heat bubbling inside of him. ‘By the gods, I _know.’_

‘And _so_ arrogant, my Courtier,’ the Raven Prince laughed.

Augus had his eyes closed, his head faced the ceiling, and so he received the warm palm over his chest with a shock. He lowered his head down, surprised at the touch, and then surprised further when he bucked into his own fingers and cried out, disarmed, his cock expanding, a familiar tightening drawing up inside of him. It was inexorable now, and all because the Raven Prince had _touched_ him.

He cried out again, bracing himself on rumpled blankets as he came, feeling as though his release had been wrung out of him. The hand stayed on his chest, black claws with tiny sharp points stroking gently at his skin, tenderly. The touch was unexpected, it was _careful._ The Raven Prince was touching him with the same care that Augus had shown him, and it broadsided into his mind, slammed his awareness until it was shattered.

Augus came back to himself slowly, for a moment wondering if he’d forgotten his own name again, relieved he hadn’t. He looked up when he realised what had happened. He felt no hand on his chest, but one in his hair now, instead. The Raven Prince was looking down at him, considering.

‘You would never be a consort, would you?’ he said.

‘No,’ Augus said, a bitter flavour moving through his mouth.

‘But you will allow this again?’

Those words were a balm against the poisons inside of himself. ‘Allow.’ That was very satisfying. His core of dominance clung onto it and used it to remind himself that he had – for the past few years – been seducing his King. That he had been _successful._

‘Perhaps after I’ve showered,’ Augus said, and the Raven Prince chuckled.

‘I didn’t mean _now,’_ he said, but his eyes held a curious gleam in them, and Augus shrugged his shoulders.

‘Whenever you wish, my Prince. Whenever you wish.’

The Raven Prince looked down at his own soiled torso with distaste, and then looked back up at Augus and tilted his head.

‘You’ll make a good King one day.’

The words were a shock of cold water through him, and it took a great deal of willpower not to stiffen, not to-

The Raven Prince had noticed.

‘Didn’t I say that I also had plans?’ he said. ‘You didn’t know they were accordance with yours, did you?’

Augus stared at him. The Raven Prince looked at him with a wry amusement. He slid off the bed and took his pants, his belt, and then bent over and picked up his shirt where he’d dropped it.

‘You need time,’ the Raven Prince said. ‘A lot more time. Centuries. Maybe a thousand years or more. It will take time. You must be tempered, Augus.’

_Too long. That will take too long. Too long to find him and-_

But Augus recovered himself and shrugged a shoulder in lazy acknowledgement, masking the heavy thump of his heart.

‘Thank you,’ the Raven Prince said, holding his clothing in his arms and offering something of a fond half-smile. ‘If you need anything I can give you, please ask it of me. I owe you a debt for this.’

He teleported away, leaving a single, glimmering feather in his wake. It spiralled down to the floor and settled lightly.

Augus took a deep, shuddering breath and pressed his hands to his face.

He thought he was patient, but centuries, a _thousand years_ was too long. He couldn’t wait that long. And yet...maybe he could. It was tempting to wait that long. He could get what he wanted, and he wouldn’t have to hurt anyone, and he wouldn’t-

 _Have you gone soft?_ A voice in his mind, thick with malice. _One gentle fuck, and this is what you do? Really, Augus? Let him think that his plans are in accordance with yours, they look enough the same that he will be easily tricked. He need never know that you’re on a different timeline, until he has no choice but to know._

Augus lay back on his bed, feeling the imprint of the Raven Prince’s hand on his chest. He stared up at the ceiling where the Raven Prince had stared, closed his eyes.

Everything was going to plan.

Augus hadn’t expected it to hurt quite so much.  

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [There is a raven](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1160065) by [Morbid_lizard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morbid_lizard/pseuds/Morbid_lizard)




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